Early newspaper advertising grew out of informational classified notices that newspapers treated as news.

Evidence

MacManus’s alternative was an advertising of iconography. He built up his brands to be trusted, even revered. He sought not so much to persuade customers but to convert them; to create a lasting loyalty. In his hands, the Cadillac meant something, and its drivers were meant to identify with their vehicles. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204 (#expands, via linked claim)

Claude C. Hopkins was perhaps an unlikely figure to revolutionize the business of harvesting and using human attention, but that is what he did in the early twentieth century, when he became one of advertising’s greatest innovators. Still in its infancy, this new form of communication was, as we have said, the means by which attention could be converted into cash, for Hopkins was a particular master of the art of using attention to create demand for new products. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 76 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204; Early advertising converted human attention into cash by creating demand — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 76

Broader Connections

• Early twentieth-century advertising moved from persuasion to brand loyalty and conversion #expands (0.82) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 204
• Early advertising converted human attention into cash by creating demand #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 76